Friday, March 9, 2012

Independence Days

Happy Independence Days, everyone!  TGIF!

I have been absolutely itching for spring this week!  The weather's been a mix of beautiful, disgustingly windy and a bit snowy.  Torture, really.  Next week is supposed to be in the upper 50s all week.  However, we still have about a 2 months until we're guaranteed no more frost...oy!  Alright, onto the business of the day!

Plant something: 
  • In the hoop houses
    • 1 row Golden Beets
    • 1 row Dwarf Snap Peas
  • Under grow lights
    • 24 bunching onions
    • Tomatillos
    • Orange Fleshed Purple Smudge Tomato
    • Black from Tula Tomato
    • Shishito Peppers
    • Chocolate Beauty Bell Pepper


Harvest something (from this Harvest Monday post):

  • Mixed greens = 2 ounces
  • Spinach = 2 ounces from under the grow lights
  • Spinach = 2 ounces from the hoop house
  • Eggs = 19



Preserve something: Nothing this week...

Waste not (beyond the normal composting and saving of egg shells):
  • Watered hoop houses using rain barrel water again
  • Used recycled newspaper to make our own seed starting pods
Want Not: Nothing again this week...

Eat the Food:
  • We made and ate 2 loaves of bread
  • 2 half pints of pickled beets (these really are my new favorite snack!)
  • Homemade butter
  • Harvested spinach and greens
  • Eggs

Build community food systems: We decided not to go to the Farmer's Market last weekend because we didn't need anything.  Need being the operative word.  We are re-assessing our original vow of going every week and are now thinking about going every other week as we usually do bi-weekly shopping.  This means we will shop tomorrow and I will report next week :-)

Skill up: 
  • I made butter for the very first time this week!
  • I learned how to make our own seed pods :-)
  • Tool Lady did lots of research this week on how to move a bee hive.  The move is scheduled for tomorrow evening :-)

Independence Days Challenge is hosted by

I'd love to see what you've been up to!  If you'd like to join in simply leave a link to your Independence Days post and I'll pop on over!  If you don't have a blog, feel free to let me know what you've been up to in the comments below!
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4 comments:

  1. SunnyBeachJewelryGardenMarch 9, 2012 at 7:33 AM

    Great! You are so organized!
    and I like your etsy store! especially green and yellow pendant.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. MelissaMarch 12, 2012 at 7:23 PM

      Ha! I try my best to stay organized. It's a problem...really ;-)

      Delete
  2. KMarch 9, 2012 at 3:06 PM

    Ooooh, butter! I think I might just have to try that! And I'm so envious of your harvest - one thing I want to work on for the Challenge is expanding the harvest time for my garden. I don't have the room for a hoop house, but I can easily put up a small tunnel over one or two beds. And a lot of my seed selection this year was focused on hardy crops :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. MelissaMarch 12, 2012 at 7:29 PM

      We're still working on extending our harvests, too...there's such a learning curve involved!!! Our hoop houses are simply two of our raised beds with some PVC piping stretched from side to side and some plastic sheeting over the top held on by a few clamps.

      I definitely recommend trying out making your own butter...it's so good and so easy!!!

      Delete

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